Open Your Eyes
by Googie
Summary: Post 4x23. Yes, it's another post-finale fic. From Castle's POV; upon waking up the next morning, he wonders if the night before was all a dream.


_**Post 4x23. Has some spoilers if you haven't seen that yet, but not big ones. **__**I gave myself an hour to write this because I have tons of other things to do. **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own or have rights to any of these characters. :(**_

_**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**_

He didn't want to open his eyes.

He was lost in a haze of sleep, of warm sheets, of a soft bed, of...contentment.

He was in that brief realm of semi-consciousness where you're ultra conscious of some things, and you tended to have brilliant ideas that, in the light of the day, turned out to be quite silly or illogical.

But he kept his eyes closed, because he didn't want to face the light of this day. In his haze, his mind had wandered, although it didn't have to wander far. _It_ was always right there lately.

Since he'd walked out of her apartment, that part of him that was a man in love felt utterly and completely alone. The father in him was proud, oh so proud at seeing his daughter's commencement address and seeing what a fine woman she'd grown into. But the man in him was bereft, certain that one of these days, he would hear of the death of the woman who had come to mean so much to him. She would have run straight at those people who killed her mother, with no regard for her own life or for those who would be devastated by her death. And they would have killed her. All he would be left with would be the dreams to torture him, dreams of what they could have had together.

And those thoughts permeated his semi-conscious state now.

He'd known from the moment he walked out of her apartment that it was a near certainty that she would be dead soon.

He knew that day could be today. And he didn't want to open his eyes to face it.

But then as he slipped more into wakefulness, he shifted a bit in the bed and he realized that his limbs—naked limbs?—were in direct contact with another body, another person. She was snuggled into him, and his arms were around her, holding her close. Naked skin against naked skin.

No, the dreams were still torturing him, worse than ever, it seemed. Because now he couldn't just imagine her, he could _feel_ her. It was exquisite torture though, so he kept his eyes closed, because he knew that if he opened them, it would all just disappear. Poof.

Upon feeling the body, his mind opened more, although his eyes stayed closed. The imaginary body shifted then, and then with something akin to a mental jolt, he began to remember the night before as images and feelings flashed in his mind.

The knock on the door.

"I'm so sorry, Castle."

"I just want _you_."

And then...the kisses.

The scar. Her scar..._their_ scar. How so much had opened when she received that wound...not just her own trauma, but _theirs_.

He saw it, he touched it. And she'd held his fingers there, not letting him escape from it. Sharing her burden with him, finally.

And all that had followed...it was a dream, wasn't it? It had to be.

She was supposed to be dead right now. They would have killed her by now. She couldn't be here.

How did he reconcile the years of wanting her and all of her rejections and dismissals of him, with the memories from last night and what he thought he was feeling in his arms now?

This wasn't possible. He didn't want to open his eyes.

The body must have a hand, because soft fingers were now tenderly tracing the contours of his face. It felt heavenly. But he still didn't want to open his eyes.

The hand left his face then, and he'd just settled his mind into thinking that it really was just his vivid imagination when he felt something else. A lot of things, actually. He felt a feather-light kiss at the side of his mouth. He felt the body lean into his. And he felt a hand cupping his bare backside.

And despite his earlier resolve, his eyes flew open when he felt _that_.

And he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. So impossibly close in front of him, and against him, and even a little bit _on_ him.

It really _was_ Kate.

She was here.

She was alive.

It wasn't a dream, or something that his Kate-starved imagination had conjured up.

She was here.

With bed-head from being in _his_ bed, and with a sexy smile on her face as she shyly said, "Hey," before she leaned in and gave him another kiss.

He touched her face just to make sure, trailing one finger down her cheek. And she turned her head and kissed his finger, as she kept smiling at him.

He felt the smile form on his own face as reality crashed into him. But it was a good reality, the best reality he'd felt in...months. No, maybe years.

She was alive.

And she was here, with him.

And if that beautiful morning-after smile was any indication, she was now _with_ him, totally. In every sense.

"Hey," he repeated back to her softly, letting their own form of communication say so much more than the simple word did.

He was looking at a beautiful sight.

And he didn't know if he'd ever close his eyes again.

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

**One-shot. Really. I know I don't do those a lot, but I jumped on the bandwagon and did a post-Always fic. **

_**So leave me a review and let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate it. Toodles!**_


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